Month: September 2017

Today was my last day on my current project. I’m still staying with my company, though. I turned in my Common Access Card (CAC), said my goodbyes to people and was escorted out of my building. On Monday, I will be on a new project for work. This project is not on the military post I worked at for nearly a year, but the project will only be 6 minutes away from my house. No, I’m not taking a bike to work. I don’t have a bike since I never learned how to ride without training wheels.

Saying goodbye to people wasn’t hard. I will see a few people on my upcoming project, but they will start after I do. However, saying goodbye to Brad — who became my mentor because the project I just left was my first job that required a security clearance — caused me to nearly cry. Now I only get to see Franklin up to four times a week (maybe back up to 7 if he gets on this contract too), so I will need to adjust to that. I will see him for kickboxing on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays and we will spend time with each other on Saturdays and Sundays. If he has drill that weekend, I will see him less. Sad sad, cry cry.

Now the reason why I am blogging about this is because I’m kind of nervous about my new team. At my previous job (my first job out of university), there were people at that job who were sexist, I think there was some racism going on, and people were not very willing to help me. On the project I just left, the experience was much better. It was still majority white men, but the men weren’t sexist and the developer lead and his second-in-command went above and beyond to help me. I’m worried that the next team won’t be as helpful or that the team will be closer to being what the people at my previous job used to be like.

I am still affected by the things that happened at my previous job. I feel like I will always be affected by it to some extent. I will not go into detail in this blog, but I will talk about it in a future blog post. I almost forgot to mention that I will miss my boss from my company. This boss was great. I worked in a different building than my company office and one day, my boss came over to see how I was doing. Tom’s great. I’ll miss him. I will have a new boss. Please wish me luck as I go off to my next adventure and hopefully improve as a developer.

This post is largely (but not completely) inspired by the recent protests at the American football games on Sunday. People will be offended. I seriously don’t give a fuck.

If you haven’t been aware of things going on in the NFL lately, football players have taken Colin Kaepernick’s lead on peaceful protesting and have either kneeled for the national anthem or stayed in the locker room. This pissed people off. Mainly white people and people who are or were in the military. Those people are clearly okay with the injustices going on in America (or as some say, Amerikkka), and to those people, fuck you. I will not respect you for being okay with my life being at risk.

In one football team, the only athlete from one team on the field for the National Anthem was a military veteran. People were quick to point it out. This, and a non-negative event that happened after kickboxing last month is what inspired this blog about the hero worshiping that occurs with people in the military.

Last month, before my boyfriend went off to his two-week training, I met up with him and some men from his National Guard unit for lunch. Of course, they were in uniform. Two people thanked the guardsmen for their service. It made me think about whether these thank yous were legitimate or if the two guys felt like they had to thank them because they were in uniform. Some people also thank elderly men for their service. They didn’t have a choice but to fight in a war, so should they really be thanked? Form your opinion on that.

In the American culture, there is an elevated (and excessive) admiration for anyone who is or was in the military. Well, except for National Guard members since they’re misunderstood. More on that in another blog. This is what hero worship means. People think that anyone who chooses to fight in the armed services is better than everyone else. Heck, I have met at least one person in the ROTC who seemed to be better than the rest of the people in the religion class because of being in the ROTC. You are not entitled to anyone’s respect. You are not entitled to have your perks. You are not entitled to anything, so don’t be an entitled schmuck.

And to the civilians who like to figurative suck the dicks of the military: why do you do it? If you feel like you have to, don’t. It’s as ineffective as an insincere apology. Are you living vicariously through those in the service? People in the military should not be seen as perfect people or glorified to the level of a deity.

Bi Visibility Day, also known as Celebrate Bisexuality Day or Bisexual Awareness Day. What is this day about? It is a day to recognize bisexuals who are family members, friends, significant others, historic figures, and people in the general community. It is also a day to raise awareness that bisexuals exist.

Did you know?:

Freddie Mercury is bisexual. He was very much in love with Mary Austin and they remained close friends from the time of their breakup in 1976 to the day of his death. People only know of his relationship with Jim Hutton.

Bisexuals are marginalized by the straight community and LGBT community. This is why Bi Visibility Day exists.

Bi Visibility Day would not exist without Wendy Curry, Michael Page, and Gigi Raven Wilbur. These three people are bisexual rights activists.

Bi Visibility Day is in September because Freddie Mercury was born in that month. I just learned this fact. The bisexual rights activists mentioned in the previous fact love Freddie Mercury.

There is a strong lack of representation for bisexuals. Try finding an LGBT book. Not too hard with Google, right? Now find a book about bisexuals. Good luck. Look at the TV shows that have a gay person or a lesbian in it. They’re becoming more prevalent. Now find one with a bisexual character. Hard. Now find a bisexual character that is not a damaging stereotype. Likely doesn’t exist.

Bisexual originally meant having two sexes in one being. If you mentioned bisexuals in the 19th century, people would think “hermaphrodite”. Note: A hermaphrodite is a being with both male and female COMPLETE sex organs. Since this is not possible with humans, intersex is the term for a person with variations in sex characteristics.

Some bisexual celebrities (besides the aforementioned Freddie Mercury) include Angelina Jolie, Billie Joe Armstrong (from Green Day), Andy Dick, and Carrie Brownstein (from Portlandia). Of course, this is not an exclusive list, so don’t complain if I didn’t include your favorite bisexual celebrity.

Of course, those are not all the facts relating to bisexuality. There are also some statistics about bisexuals, but I will not post them here since some statistics may be triggering. In honor of bi visibility day, I am going to say something that I don’t tell most people. I understand if I lose followers from this:

Chosen family. What does that mean? It’s a family that is not related to you by blood, but play a significant and positive role in your life. This is often a group of friends. I first heard the term in the LGBTQ community a few months ago. People often have a chosen family due to issues with their biological family. For me, I feel like the black sheep of the family, although for reasons that family members don’t know about.

For me, my chosen family is made up of the people in my kickboxing gym.

In this chosen family, any criticisms I get is to help me improve my techniques for my kicks. In this chosen family, there is support. This family did not discourage me from taking kickboxing due to me being a girl. No one has said sexist things (although I still get paranoid that they’re thinking sexist things). My blood relatives did not think I should do kickboxing because I’m a girl. Although I am afraid of shadowboxing against a few people, I don’t dread being around the people at my gym.

Sorry it’s a short post. I’ve been forgetting about this blog post for weeks and don’t have much to say. Also, today is my grandfather’s 87th birthday.